Gulliver's Fugitives - Keith Sharee [78]
“Stay with me, Powell. I need information from you, the names of other insurgents.”
Odysseus mumbled softly. Troi couldn’t catch what he said.
“Who are your co-conspirators above ground?” asked Ferris.
Odysseus mumbled again.
“Hurry!” said Ferris. “The names of your principal helpers in the city!”
“Eumaios,” said Odysseus.
“Eumaios who?” asked Ferris.
“Eumaios … pig farmer.”
“Relay these into the computer as I give them to you,” Ferris shouted to the CS men around Troi. “First one is Eumaios, a pig farmer.”
Odysseus’ voice seemed to gain in strength. “Euryclea—she is a nurse,” he said, “and Autolycos, and Polipses …”
“Euryclea, who is a nurse, and Autolycos—” said Ferris, stopping as the one-eyes suddenly drew up in a tight circle around him.
“What are you doing?” he asked the machines. “Let me finish my report. Autolycos, Polipses—”
The one-eyes drew closer. Attack formation. Ferris knew it well enough. They were going to shoot him.
“Get back!” he commanded.
He could hear the one-eyes start to prime their weapons. In a soldier’s reflex he reached for his own gun. He had gotten it halfway out of its holster when the combined radiation from fifty one-eye guns vectored directly through his head and killed him instantly.
There was a moment of quiet, except for the wind blowing past the high, exposed bridge.
The CS men walked over to the two prone forms. They took Troi with them.
As Troi stared at Odysseus, perceiving he was now dead, she heard snatches of conversation between the CS officers.
“Looks like Ferris tried to report fiction …”
“You hear any of it?”
“No. Filtered out of our headsets …”
“But Ferris used the truth drug on that guy. The drug’s foolproof!”
“Okay, so how could he have given Ferris any fiction to report?”
“… don’t know … maybe to him it was the truth.”
The CS soldiers began to pull Troi away. She got a last look at Odysseus. His eyes were open, reflecting a sky full of thunderheaded cumulus clouds—the clouds of Zeus Alastor, Zeus the Avenger.
Chapter Fifteen
“CHOPS, WE’RE OUT OF TIME,” Geordi said. “The one-eyes have shut down the impulse engines. Our orbit is starting to decay. All I’ve got left is enough warp engine power for partial shields. The one-eyes are heading back in my direction. I think they’re going to try and finish off the warp engines for good. We’ll either fall like a brick, or get shot full of holes, or both.”
Geordi was trying to coax more power out of the warp engines even as he talked.
“I’ll have the first Cyclops-buster ready in twenty minutes,” said Ensign Chops Taylor’s voice, from Geordi’s communicator.
“We’ve only got ten max.”
“Can you spare Skoel for a while? …” She paused and Geordi could hear her make a rapid sequence of welds. “… I create at my best with a little help from some IDIC.”
“You’ve got him. La Forge out.”
Geordi’s communicator then spoke with a much lower voice.
“Worf to La Forge.”
“La Forge here. You still in sickbay?”
“Correct, sir. However, I’m feeling fine, and I’m ready to leave. What is the situation with the one-eyes?”
“The same two who were down here before are coming back to finish me off.”
“Sir, I believe it is possible that I could destroy those two hand-to-hand given another chance. Only one of the two is armed, and I believe it can’t read my brain waves as easily as it does a human’s, though I can’t be sure. Permission to intercept them, sir?”
Normally Geordi would have said no to anything entailing a risk of life and limb. But this wasn’t “normally,” this was a Kobayashi Maru situation.
“Are you recovered enough to function, Worf?”
“If you please, sir, I’m very eager to get going.”
Yes, thought Geordi, you would be no matter what condition you were in. But there was no choice now, and no time for formalities with Dr. Crusher.
“Okay Worf, you’re on.”
In sickbay, Worf rose from his bed with crisp alacrity. Wentz had filled him in on the progress of the one-eyes toward Warp Engineering, as well as the status of Wesley’s Cyclops-buster.
Shikibu, on the bed next to him, had heard all of it.